Parental Stress Is a Critical Public Health Issue

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Surgeon General Advisories are public statements calling attention to significant and urgent public health issues that also provide corresponding recommendations. Recently, the Office of the Surgeon General dedicated such an advisory to Parental Mental Health & Well-Being. This post is dedicated to summarizing this call to attention.

The advisory reported astonishing statistics about the current state of parental health and well-being:

• 41% of parents report that most days they are so stressed that they cannot function; 48% report that most days their stress is completely overwhelming compared to other adults (20% and 26%, respectively).
• 33% of parents report high levels of stress in the past month compared to 20% of other adults.

Parents are faced with a variety of unique stressors across their children's developmental stages. Noted common stressors of parenting included sleep disturbance, time scarcity, developmental-based child behaviors, and cultural expectations for parenting and children. Below is a summary of additional key stressors from the document:

• Financial strain and instability – childcare prices have grown approximately 26% in the past decade; 1/4^th of parents report times that they did not have enough money for basic needs.
• Time demands – from 1985-2022, the average employment hours for parents have increased (25% for mothers, 20.9 hours in 1985 to 26.7 hours in 2022; 4% for fathers, 39.8 hours in 1985 to 41.2 hours in 2022) while time spent on primary childcare has also substantially increased (40% for mothers, 8.4 hours in 1985 to 11.8 hours in 2022; 154% for fathers, 2.6 hours in 1985 to 6.6 hours in 2022).
• Children’s health – nearly 3-in-4 parents are somewhat or extremely worried about their child’s mental health.
• Children’s safety – safety including bullying, substance use, and school shootings (74% of parents) are sources of parental stress.
• Parental loneliness – approximately 2/3rds of parents experienced loneliness.
• Technology and social media – nearly 70% of parents reported increased difficulty parenting due to technology and media.

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This document also denoted that 2021-2022 data indicated 23.9% (or 20.3 million) of parents had a mental illness and 5.7% (or 4.8 million) had a serious mental illness. Parent’s mental health and well-being (mothers and fathers) do not only impact them; it can also have significant impacts on their families, children, and society at large.

Mothers are disproportionately impacted by mental health conditions, particularly during the perinatal period. As many as 1 in 5 women experience mental health concerns during pregnancy and/or postpartum. Maternal mental health conditions continue to be the leading cause of pregnancy-related deaths, with nearly all deaths caused by mental health conditions being preventable.

Children can suffer when there is a disruption in bonding, stability, and support caused by symptoms of a mental illness in parents. Parents with mental health conditions also incur higher healthcare costs and lost economic productivity.

Recommendations

We need a fundamental shift in how we value and prioritize parents’ well-being. The document provides a lengthy action plan to mitigate stress through policy, programming, and culture change. Below are a few of these recommendations:

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• Establish paid family leave at the national level
• Invest in programming to create parental communities
• Improve efforts that target social determinants of health impacting parents and improve access to affordable, quality mental healthcare
• Improve screening of mental health conditions
• Recognize diversity across parents and family structures to prioritize inclusive programming and research

Bottom line: As a therapist who specializes in perinatal and parental mental health, I often hear myself telling clients, “This feels hard not because you’re doing it wrong, but because it is hard!” At present, parents are under immense pressure and they are suffering. It's our collective responsibility to support parents in raising healthy children because these children are our future. Supporting parental mental health truly benefits all of society.